


under rich, relentless skies

by shakespork



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Avengers mention, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Keep it together Trevor, Mystery, One Shot, Panic Attacks, Paris (City), People know Diana is Wonder Woman AU, Post-Movie(s), Reunions, Time Travel Fix-It, but nothing explicit cuz im keeping to the ideals of the film, i dont know what a mile is, ughhh theres implied sexyness i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 19:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11214810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespork/pseuds/shakespork
Summary: Steve Trevor wakes up cold, stiff and disorientated in the middle of a field. His eyes open; he looks up at the distant stars, turns over, and vomits up burning acid.He thinks, distantly, that spy training didn’t quite cover this.





	under rich, relentless skies

**Author's Note:**

> thank you, randomoranges@tumblr for the translation!
> 
> \---[hover over french text for english version]---

 

Steve Trevor wakes up cold, stiff and disorientated in the middle of a field. His eyes open; he looks up at the distant stars, turns over, and vomits up burning acid.  
  
He thinks, distantly, that spy training didn’t quite cover this.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
It takes him a whole thirty minutes just to make himself move.  
  
He’s afraid that when he does, this dream will shatter.  
  
He sits up, slowly, checking and rechecking himself for dizziness, nausea, pain, ache, soreness, any goddamn sign that he’d just _died in a mustard-gas explosion seven miles up in the air_ \-- but nothing out of the ordinary happens.  
There is nothing, except a weird bruise on his chest.  
  
As far as he can tell, he is just a little cold, and a little singed, and just on the brink of a little-big panic attack.  
  
He sucks in one shaky breath, and then another, and another, and another until the air just keeps coming and he’s sick with it, eyes watering from the sheer scope of his turmoil. It never-- whenever-- he remembers bitterly now-- whenever he’d been faced with a crisis and he’d barely gotten out of it with his life, he’d always broken down some time later. As if his mind, having shut down anything that didn’t help his immediate drive for survival, had just decanted the emotions so that they’d bubble up and hiss and consume him long after the initial danger had passed. It’s the same now.  
  
He’s never faced the prospect of his death so clearly before.  
He’d accepted it, even, in the last quiet moments as the plane rose up through the air like a shrieking bird.  
  
He’d _died_ , for God’s sake - he feels it with such certainty in that moment, feels in phantom pain his body ripping apart in the explosion, the gorgon pain of it wrapping around his lungs until he's drowning in terror and he can’t _breathe_.  
  
But he must.  
But he does.  
  
He swallows down breath after breath, until the pain in his chest recedes, until the terror eases into something controllable. Until he feels like his diaphragm is under his command, and he can slow down, take his face into his hands and try his best to quell his shaking.  
  
Steve Trevor, against all odds, thirty minutes after his death and seven miles too close to the earth, just breathes.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
Another hour is spent goading himself into standing up, and pushing his feet forward through the furrows and pathways of the field and onto a nearby road. That, he notes through his nausea, is still the same, at least. He pulls up his wrist to check the time before he remembers, with both relief and pain, that he'd given it to Diana.  
  
Diana.  
  
He stops, and looks up at the sky, fighting down the sudden ache in his throat that prickles at his eyes.  
  
Diana.  
  
Was she alright? She was -- she was fighting, when he’d flown the plane. She was fighting against Ares, who, despite all of Steve’s doubts and explanations, was real. God, he should’ve trusted her, should’ve taken her at her word when she’d talked about Ares.  
What if she was dead?  
  
He feels the panic coming back up, so he forces it down, clenching his fists and biting back at his own damned thoughts with viciousness.  
  
No, she was alive. She was a goddess. She ran across No Man’s Land without a scratch. Shed demolished a fucking _church_ just by ramming it with her shield. She was _fine_.  
  
Steve kept walking down the road, repeating these assurances like a mantra.  
  
Diana was fine. She was fine. She was with her people on Themyscira, or with the troops in London, or with--  
  
Steve stops.  
  
Oh God. Sameer, Charlie, Chief. They were-- Were they dead? Did-- did they survive that fight? Good God, they were only human, fragile, breakable, delicate human--  
  
But he'd survived.  
  
Right?  
  
What if--? This wasn’t some Purgatory, was it? What if this was some enduring dream? What if he was a ghost?  
  
He sits down, right on the road, digging his fingers into his scalp.  
He needs to calm down. He needs to keep his head. Keep his head, and he’ll figure this out. It worked for the war, it worked for the missions, it’ll work for-- whatever this is. Yes. He’ll be fine.  
  
Steve gets up, and keeps walking. He doesn’t stop.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
It takes him the better part of two hours to reach Veld - he recognises the church spire, so at least he’s pretty sure this is Veld. The big clock says it's five in the morning. He thinks he’ll get hysterical again if he thinks about the fact that this church... this church is not demolished, not lying in crumbling piles of mortar with a big fucking Diana-shaped hole up top, but, you know, he’s not going to think about that right now. And the lack of mustard gas, too, nope, he’ll think about that later. Focus, Steve. No… no time for self-rebuilding churched right this minute.  
Instead, he looks around for a bike. Or a car - a car would be much better, but he’d even settle for a horse right about now. A donkey, if he's in real dire straits. He’ll-- listen, he’ll figure everything out later. Later. Now, he just needs to get to Diana.  
Find Diana, and everything will make sense.  
  
The sun is hovering on the horizon with hesitation, staining the sky a pleasant blue. It’s very… nice here. He thinks, even if this does turn out to be some bizzare, cruel dream, he won’t mind so much. He didn’t think he’d get to see the morning sky at all when he’d gotten in that plane, so this? This is… nice.  
  
He walks into the town square, noting with a dazed shock the same cafe they’d sat outside of just two days ago, and how it’s windows still sport the same signage. And there’s the little fountain, with the clear blue water, and over there the same two-storied house where he and Diana had--  
He flushes.  
Well.  
  
Something moves out of the corner of his eye, so he turns, and for a moment he swears he’s hallucinating. Really, on a day like this, that wouldn't be surprising at all. But, no, he squints and… it's a photograph. A giant, coloured photograph. And its _moving_.  
  
What?  
  
His feet carry him forward without him noticing. He’s mesmerised, enchanted by the flickering, changing, evolving pictures, to the point where even the tight knot of worry in his stomach starts to unwind, just a little. He recognises the picture dimly as a film of sorts. But where is the projector? Where is the film reel? Where are the musicians to produce the string of sound he now realises is coming from the film? Why is the picture itself glowing, casting an ever-changing light on its surroundings?  
  
He stares, and stares, and stares, and now his mind is registering the ticker-tape of words crawling along the bottom of the film. He doesn’t understand it - dimly recognises it as French - but he is too caught up in the images. A woman, in a suit, with _trousers on_ , pointing at a map of Europe. There are degrees, in centigrade, hovering above the names of big cities. Paris, Bordeaux, Orléans, Marseille. There are-- Steve squints, coming closer. There are little clouds, little storm clouds and rain clouds and little fucking suns dancing across the film, changing as the woman points to them. Something is nagging at him. How in the _fuck_ \--  
  
“Excusez-moi, monsieur, est-ce que je peux vous aider?”  
  
Steve jerks away from the screen and pivots, coming up face to face with an old man holding a washcloth, heart pounding in his ears. The man flinches at Steve’s reaction, stepping back. His eyes are wide behind his wire-rimmed glasses.  
  
Steve swallows, trying to push down his urge to run. He pushes out a, “What?”  
  
The man is a little more cautious now, but his eyes light up in understanding. He gestures with his hands, and through a thick accent, manages to say, “Can I help you?”  
  
Steve blinks, nods, shakes his head, and says, “I, uhm-- I was just-- Uh--” He rubs his face, as if that will gather his thoughts for him. “Where, uhm, where am I?”  
  
The man raises his eyebrows. “Veld.”  
  
“Yes, yes, I know, but--” Steve gestures, pointing at the man, at the cafe, at the fixed church and at the film, and the question clicks. “I was just-- _when_ , when am I?”  
  
“Euh…” The man frowns. Steve fears for a moment the man hadn’t understood him, had missed the question in the litany of words Steve now recognises was babbling, but then; “It is, euh, _juillet_. Le quatre-- euh, four. Four juillet. July?”  
  
Steve nods, and now he really needs to sit down because his legs are wobbling and it’s been _six months_ from the last time he was aware. It’s fucking Independence Day, and he wants to laugh and be sick. At least, he thinks, that time might explain the church spire. But… the film?  
  
He asks, then, with some fear; “And-- and the year?”  
  
The man frowns. “The year?”  
  
“Yes,” says Steve.  
  
The man takes a moment, looking up and moving his lips, trying to piece together the words. He says, “It is, euh, two thousand, ten, seven. Seventeen.”  
  
“ _Two thousand and seventeen?_ ” Steve yelps.  
  
“Euh, yes,” says the man, reeling back from Steve’s reaction. He folds his hands and approaches Steve, looking down to catch his eye. “Monsieur, is, euh… okay? Pardon mon anglais, mais vous n’avez pas l’air très bien. You, euh… not healthy?”  
Steve looks up at him in a daze, and the concern on the man’s face just grows deeper. He takes Steve’s arm, gently, trying not to spook him, and Steve closes his eyes. There is a storm brewing in his gut, clawing up his throat. It’s making him queasy. He thinks he might be sick.  
  
The old man makes a decision, apparently, because he pulls at Steve’s arm, saying, “Allez. Come, sit. Asseyez-vous ici, là, attendez, s’il vous plaît.” He pulls Steve inside the cafe and pushes him into a chair. Steve goes quietly, his mind still whirring to catch up with what he’d just learned.  
  
The man disappears, goes off somewhere deeper into the cafe, and Steve is still sitting at the small window table, watching the dappled light dance over the old wood. The same-- no, can’t be-- the same wood he’d seen two days ago, _one hundred years ago_ , and that’s ridiculous, because no wooden table would last one hundred goddamn _years_ , no matter what kind of fucking wood it was made from, and--  
His breath is speeding up again, and there are tears at his eyes. His heart is pounding, pounding, pounding, and he’s drowning without air, choking on it as his lungs pull in more than he can take. They escape him, his breaths, in a wheeze, in a painful struggle. The wood is soft beneath his gripping fingers, and it bends under the force of them. He’s leaving marks in an antique table, where for a hundred years there were no marks. This table must be priceless. He finds the thought so suddenly hilarious that he can’t help the burst of laughter from escaping him. Priceless. Antique. _He’s_ a goddamn fucking antique. Jesus Christ on a stick.  
  
Just as before though, through the fog of his panic, he forces himself to calm down. _Forces himself to._ Remembers his training, his-- his only goddamn talents as a liar, a murderer, a smuggler. He pushes back against the instinct to run, to suck in lungful after lungful of useless air. His whole body shakes and shudders, but he grips it, wrestles for control. Slowly, his breathing cams. His heart rate subsides. He lets go of the table in a jerky motion, and smoothes his fingers over the dents. Feels the grain of the wood, the dimples of it running across from side to side, and concentrates on that instead.  
  
He registers two sounds, one after the other:  
The first is the string of speech coming from the film over his head. It’s changed, from a weather forecast to a string of events. News, he thinks. The words come fast and melodic, too quick for him to decipher with his shitty French. He recognises “Paris”, and “événements”, and “risque”.  
The second is two sets of footsteps, coming down from above. One is heavy, old, and the other is light and quick. Younger. Steve turns his head, and sees the old man emerging from behind the bar counter. Behind him is a young woman, maybe around Steve’s age, tying a bathrobe around herself and watching him with bewilderment. She turns to the man, says something Steve doesn’t quite catch, and the old man nods.  
  
“Monsieur,” she says, approaching his table. “ Vous ne comprenez pas le français.”  
  
Steve blinks up at her, blank. The woman nods to herself, and then lowers herself down onto a chair, looking at him all the while. She’s asking for his permission, he realises. He blinks again, nods, and she relaxes a little in her seat. Steve looks at her now, really looks at her, and realises that she has sleep circles under her eyes. Her hair is tied haphazardly into a ponytail, and her face is just on that side of too soft that tells him she’s just woken up.  
  
“Ah, ouai, I speak English, so that is fine,” says the woman, and her accent is strong. “Can I ask your name?”  
  
Steve looks into her face, and; “Uh…?”  
  
“Your name?” the woman says again.  
  
“Oh,” he says, and shakes his head, sticking out a hand out of habit. “Steve. It’s Steve.”  
  
She looks down at his hand with concern, but shakes it anyway. “Well, Steve, what is, euh, is everything okay?”  
  
“...Sorry?”  
  
“My father--” She gestures to the old man. “He said he found you outside of the cafe, and you were a little distressed. He said you asked for the date?”  
  
“Oh, uh, yes,” says Steve, and flushes with embarrassment. “I was just, uhm--” And then the shock is back again and he’s shaking and he thinks about the goddamn date and how he was one hundred _goddamn years_ out of his time and--  
  
“Woah, woah, woah, Steve, Steve, please,” says the woman, putting her palms up. She stands up, gripping her bathrobe, and says to the old man, “ Papa, le téléphone, s’il te plaît.” She turns back to Steve. “Steve, I am going to call for some help, do you have anyone for me to call? A-- a friend? Family, maybe?”  
  
Steve shakes his head. The questions remind him, keep hammering it in that, yes, he _had_ friends. He _had_ family, his brothers and mother and sister. He _had_ and doesn’t have them anymore because they’re all dead dead dead dead. He curls up on himself, clenching his stomach and just trying to breathe. He doesn’t understand why it’s so goddamn difficult. It’s making shame brew low in his chest and he _hates_ it.  
  
The woman is talking, gripping a small black rectangle thing in her hand and talking into it in rapid-fire French. He can’t understand a single word. The man is also talking, and gesturing to Steve, and Steve is so sick of being this afraid and lost and confused, so he looks up and--  
  
The film.  
  
His heart stops.  
  
His breathing stops.  
  
Everything stops.  
  
He blinks, and blinks again, scrunches his eyes because he thinks he’s hallucinating, but no, it’s--  
  
It’s Diana.  
  
Diana.  
  
Unchanged. That same red-and-blue get-up. The same hair, and same diadem. The same fierce look in her eyes, that same spark of wit and hope and kindness that had so enchanted him before.  
  
She’s talking to a woman, her shield tucked under her arm. Diana’s voice drifts out, and Steve is starstruck. He doesn’t understand what she’s saying, because she’s speaking in perfect French, but he would recognise the conviction in her voice anywhere.  
  
The reporter woman smiles, thanks Diana, and looks out from the film, finishing up her speech and nodding towards her viewers. Steve looks behind her, past the ticker-tape of words that now read a jumble of “Diana Prince” and “Wonder Woman”, and spots a familiar spire in the background.  
  
The Eiffel Tower.  
  
Paris.  
  
Diana is in Paris.  
  
Steve stands up and the chair falls out from behind him with a screech. The woman and the old man whirl around to face him, but Steve doesn’t really see them. He’s hooked on the film, honed in on that golden sight of the tower with bullet-like focus.  
  
“Steve…?” says the woman, putting down the black rectangle thing. There is a voice drifting out of it, tinny and urgent.  
  
“I need--” he says, licking his lips. His voice is hoarse. “I need to get there.” He points at the screen.  
  
“You need-- you need to go to Paris?” says the woman. The capital name comes out without the ‘s’. “Did you-- have you seen something you know?”  
  
Steve nods.  
  
The woman gives him a wide look, and then nods. “O--okay. Alright. Well, uhm.” She puts the black rectangle back to her ear, says something into it quickly, and then presses on its surface. There is a beep, and the voice coming from it disappears.  
  
She glances at the old man, and then turns back to look at Steve. “Well, she says. “Let’s get you to Paris, then.”  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
Steve waits at the back of the cafe while the woman and the old man decide how to get him to Paris. He suggests just letting him get a horse, he’ll be fine, it’s only around fifteen hours or so anyway, but they look at him like he’s an alien, so he just sits down and keeps quiet and enjoys the cup of coffee they’d given him until they decide.  
It’s good coffee. At least that has improved in the last hundred years. He snorts. Making fun of himself is easier than slipping into another panic.  
They’d given him a blanket too, a soft and puffy kind of thing that weighs down on him comfortably. For the shock, they said. His little fit earlier had apparently convinced them that he’d been a victim of a crime, or something. He’d read that from the pity in the woman’s eyes. It didn’t sit well with him.  
  
  
“Chérie, la meilleure chose à faire est de lui acheter un billet de train et de lui dire où aller.,” the old man is saying.  
  
The woman waves her hands. She’s changed out of her bathrobe. “Papa, y va s’perdre. Regarde le; il est malade et confus. Il a probablement une commotion cérébrale, il fait de l’amnésie, ou quelque chose du genre. Demande à Mme. Dubois de l’amener avec elle; elle s’en va à Paris, de toute façon.”  
  
The old man wrinkles his nose in distaste, and hunches his shoulders.  
  
The woman snorts. “Elle te déteste juste à cause que tu n’achètes pas ses tomates.”  
  
The old man sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Je sais. Je n’aime pas ses tomates.” He looks up at her, and then at Steve, who’s staring at a menu card with bewilderment, and then sighs again. “Bon. Je lui demanderai aujourd’hui.”  
  
“Et excuse toi,” says the woman.  
  
“Quoi? Pourquoi?” the old man barks.  
  
The woman rolls her eyes. “Fait juste t’excuser, papa. Dit que tu aimes ses tomates.”  
  
“Mais--”  
  
“T’es pas obligé d’être sérieux. Tu dois juste l’adoucir.” The woman grabs a tray and a notebook off the bar counter, and goes to greet their first customers.  
  
The old man sighs a third time, rubs his temples, and goes back into the kitchen.  
  
  
Steve misses the drama unfold. He’s too busy deciphering the menu. What on earth is a mango.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
The woman’s name is Isobel Martin. She and her father run the little cafe alongside a modest staff of two, and have been in Veld for two generations. She tells him this at the end of the day, while he helps her clean the tables. Steve had volunteered, demanded it, really. He’d eaten their food and drank their coffee all day without paying even a cent, and guilt was starting to gnaw at him. Steve asks her about the tables, confirming that they are antiques, and Isobel gives him a funny look when he mentions having recognised them.  
  
“So, uh, two generations, huh?” he asks when they’re done. They’re sitting outside, watching the village life quieten and dwindle as the day ends. Isobel offers him a cigarette, and he declines.  
  
“My family has been here since nineteen-twenty four. They helped rebuild this town after the Great War,” she says, sucking in smoke. “The front was only two miles away from here, don’t you know. A lot of bombing, gas.”  
  
Steve says nothing. He knows that more than well.  
  
“Wonder Woman came here - liberated the place from the Germans, her and a little team.” Isobel points to the church. “That thing, the second floor was completely destroyed. Rubble.” She huffs. “They say she did that too, but I don’t know if I believe it.”  
  
“You should,” says Steve. “She’s powerful.”  
  
Isobel looks at him. “Are you a fan?”  
  
“What?” Steve says.  
  
Isobel motions vaguely. “You know - superheroes. Wonder Woman, the Avengers, all that mess in America.”  
  
Steve blinks. “Uhm...” He only knows one superhero. “I guess…?”  
  
Isobel snorts, and sucks in the last bits of her cigarette. “Well, I suppose, you are young.”  
  
“I’m not _young_ ,” defends Steve, because he feels a little foolish.  
  
Isobel raises an eyebrow. “How old are you?”  
  
“I’m twenty-five,” says Steve. _I’m one-hundred and twenty five,_ he doesn’t say. It makes him want to giggle and it’s inappropriate.  
  
“Yeah, well I’m thirty-four,” says Isobel. She puts up her hands. “I know, I know, I’ve aged very well.” She laughs. “But seriously, twenty-five is young.”  
  
Steve grimaces. “That doesn’t mean liking - what did you call them? Superheroes? It doesn’t mean liking superheroes is bad.” He doesn’t know why it makes him feel so defensive. Maybe because ‘superheroes’ now includes ‘Diana’.  
  
“No,” agrees Isobel. “But, I don’t know, I don’t feel like they’re helping that much. Maybe, maybe before, yes, but now… Just, there is so much troubles now.” She frowns, waving away the smoke and putting out her cigarette. “With ISIS and terrorism and, aigh, we had Captain America and them all in World War II but we still barely managed to stop Hitler, you know?”  
  
Steve swallows, and doesn’t let it show how much that last sentence threw him. Don’t react, Trevor, assimilate. Who is Isis? Terrorism? Hitler? And wait--  
  
“There was _another war_?” he barks.  
  
Isobel frowns incredulously. “Who _are_ you?”  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
“Why are you helping me?” he asks.  
  
“Hmm?” Isobel looks over at him. It’s the next day. They let him stay in a spare room, and he insisted on helping out with the cafe. She’s prepping drinks, and Steve is standing with a tray ready to bring them to the few customers.  
  
Steve looks out of the cafe doors, onto the sun-drenched town square. “All this,” he says. “Letting me stay here, helping me out. You don't know me.” He wipes a hand over his chin. “Not that I’m not grateful, but, y’know…”  
  
Isobel checks to make sure she fills the glass in her hand with the right amount of beer.  
“You just remind me of someone,” she says, as if it’s that simple.  
  
“Yeah?” says Steve.  
  
“Uh huh,” says Isobel, and hands the full glass to him, loading his tray up with the rest of the drinks. “Here, bring that to that couple outside.”  
  
Steve bites his lip, and looks at her. Isobel isn’t paying him attention, to busy keying in the order into the cash machine. Steve thinks for a moment more, and then brings the drinks outside.  
  
He doesn’t see the dark spot on the wallpaper of the far wall. The colour around it is faded so much that the spot itself is vividly deep, the colour untouched by sunlight and time. Like something had been hanging there, small and rectangular, and has only been recently removed.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
Three days pass with surprising speed. Every day, the jitteriness in Steve builds, and he grows more desperate to move and leave and find Diana.  
  
Isobel tells him about Madame Dubois, about her trip to Paris and how she’s agreed to bring Steve with her. He’s even introduced to this Madame, but she doesn’t speak any English and his French hasn’t improved much at all, so he resigns himself to a very silent trip to Paris. Madame Dubois eyes him with a critical eye, and Steve is reminded of all those old generals at the War Council, but in the end she pronounces him acceptable. Isobel tells him in a conspiratory voice that Madame Dubois has a fondness for pretty boys, and that makes him flush. Isobel laughs at that.  
  
He learns more about her, too.  
He learns that she is working as a history professor in Brussels, but is helping out her father with the cafe during the summer. He learns that her girlfriend’s name is Marianne, and she is a doctor who’s gone off to Africa for six months, and that Isobel misses her. He even learns more about that black rectangle thing Isobel carries in her pocket - that it’s a _phone_ and it’s _tiny_ and Steve struggles to hide just how much everything is blowing his mind.  
After that particular conversation, he has to sit down for a while, though.  
  
He also learns more about Veld, and begins asking questions about the last one hundred years. How the town had grown, how it rebuilt itself from annihilation. How time has left it so untouched but deeply changed at the same time. It’s less-- it’s less scary now, he supposes, the time jump. He’s pushed it away, focused on learning more about this situation, playing it of as some recon mission from the war. Gather information, assimilate it into his worldview, fit in with the people, and move on to the next bit of news. Easy.  
  
He learns by listening to Isobel that the tiny-large film on the wall is called a _television_ , and that the people speaking are _actors_ and _reporters_ and _presenters_. That’s more or less familiar, just the same words transported onto a different platform. He also learns that radio has become almost obsolete, but Monsieur Martin still likes to keep it on, tuned to a classical station that plays old hits. Or, at least, to Isobel, they’re old. To Steve, they’re futuristic. The first time he hears a _pop song_ he sits transfixed for the entire time, and then asks if they can play it again.  
  
When he hears about a _computer_ , he just stops asking. Too much.  
  
Isobel still looks at him funny from time to time, but Steve just plays it off as him being a little amnesiac, or a little kooky - whatever fits the situation. It’s not working, but he tries. He still hasn’t told them about why he turned up at their cafe at five in the morning not knowing what the date was, or why he was wearing clothes one hundred years out of date.  
  
Speaking of which…  
  
On the third day, the last day, just as he’s preparing to go meet Madame Dubois and finally, _finally_ make his way to Paris, Isobel knocks on the door to the little guestroom they’d given him.  
  
“Isobel,” he says, looking up. He’s pulling on his own clothes - the blue trousers and white undershirt of his German uniform. He’s just about to put on his coat. They’d given him spare clothes, yes, but he think it’ll be rude to just take them. They’d done so much for him already, after all, all without even knowing who he was.  
  
“Hello, Steve,” says Isobel, and in her hands there is a jumper. “I brought you something.”  
  
Steve looks down at the jumper - soft, in a lovely shade of bright orange - and then back up at Isobel. There is a question on his face.  
  
“For you,” she explains. “It was my father’s, but he doesn’t wear it anymore.”  
  
Steve understand, and then; “Oh, oh, God, thank you so much, but I can’t possibly take it. You’ve already done too much for me.”  
  
Isobel raises an eyebrow, and looks at his clothes. “Steve, take it. I insist.” She pushes the sweater at him.  
  
“I-- I can’t, Isobel,” Steve tries. “I have nothing to give in return.”  
  
Isobel sighs, and then gestures at his coat. “Steve, no offense, but you can’t be wearing that in public.”  
  
“What?” He looks down at his coat, at the shiny silver crosses and the embroidered service stripes. “Why not?”  
  
She raises an eyebrow. “Before, first of all, it is _very_ old, and I can tell, trust me... and second of all, that cross makes you look a little like a Nazi.”  
  
Steve looks down at the Iron Cross pinned to his side. “A _what?_ ”  
  
"You don’t know what a Nazi--” Isobel rubs the bridge of her nose. “Okay, you know what, just take the sweater. Please. I really-- I really admire the accuracy of your Great War look, but just-- take the sweater.”  
  
Steve hears the pointedness in her voice, and takes the sweater. It is unbelievably soft. Expensive, judging by the colour intensity. His guilt gnaws.  
  
“Thank you,” he whispers.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
Just before he leaves, before he shuts the door of Madame Dubois’ truck, Isobel hugs him tightly and wishes him well. The old man nods a farewell too, waving from the doorway of the cafe.  
  
“I hope you find who you are looking for, Steve,” says Isobel as she steps back, and the choice of words is telling. Steve doesn’t correct her. He thinks she suspects, but maybe she doesn’t quite want to believe. The uniform, the confusion at all the technology, the odd bit of slang that sometimes escapes him. She’s a history professor, after all.  
  
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” Steve says instead. He pats at the sweater on him with a smile, enjoying the softness. Isobel laughs.  
  
Madame Dubois titters behind him, so he gives Isobel one last nod, and gets a nod back, and then Steve shuts the door.  
  
As they drive away, he watches first Isobel, then then the cafe, then the town of Veld itself grow smaller and smaller and smaller.  
  
When it finally slips out of sight, shaded by trees and hills and fields, Steve turns back around and looks out onto the road in front of him. He looks towards the border, towards Paris.  
  
Towards Diana.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
Paris is-- Paris is a mess.  
  
During the war, Steve had grown used to the bumble and bustle of London, with its hundreds of pedestrians and the buses and the cars spewing smoke and sound into the air. It no longer made him claustrophobic, not like when he’d first come into the big smoggy city, a young American pilot fresh off the airy fields of the Mid-West.  
  
Paris, however, is choked with cars. And buildings. And people.  
  
And these are just the _outskirts_ of the city.  
  
They drive on in silence. Madame Dubois listens to the radio, singing along softly to the crooning voice of some old singer. Steve had learned to recognise this type of music as old, because it was grainy and resonant in the way the new music wasn’t. New music is so _clear_. It’s like the musicians are there, performing in the room right in front of him. Or, in the car. Truck. Whatever. He isn’t quite used to that yet.  
  
It had taken them around three hours to get here, along incredibly wide roads where the cars moved at such speed it left Steve breathless. Trees and fields and rivers flew past him in a blurr. Then, now, buildings and bridges and roads do too. They grow out of the earth in neat little lines, and everything is so _clean_. He hadn’t seen a single smokestack anywhere. But the lights are on, and the power is working, so where did these people get their electricity? Where had all the coal gone?  
  
Just when they begin to enter the city proper, and they were standing in a small queue of cars waiting to go, Madame Dubois turns to Steve and taps his shoulder to get his attention. He draws his eyes away from where they were fixed on a large, colourful billboard, and faces the old woman.  
  
“ Où as-tu besoin d’aller?” she says.  
  
Steve blinks. “Uh, pardon?”  
  
Madame Dubois gestures. “Aller? Où veux-tu que je te laisse?”  
  
When Steve doesn’t understand, she huffs. “Place Charles de Gaulle? Le Louvre? Le Tour Eiffel?”  
  
Steve’s eyes light up at the familiar words, and he says, “Uh, yes, oui. Le Tour Eiffel.” He tacks on, “S’il vous plait.” His accent is terrible.  
  
“D’accord,” says Madame Dubois, and turns back to the road. Their truck moves off.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
She drops him off just in front of the colossal tower with a concerned look and the directions to the nearby tourist office. Or, at least, Steve thinks they’re directions, because she says a lot of words in very little time, and when he doesn’t understand, just snorts and points him at a building with a big blue question mark painted on it.  
  
“L’office de tourisme,” she says.  
  
Steve nods dumbly. “Merci.”  
  
He opens the door and gets down, taking in the Eiffel Tower.  
  
“Bon chance,” says Madame Dubois, shuts the door, and drives away.  
  
Steve turns back dazedly and says, “Uh, yeah… Bon chance too, I guess.”  
  
What now?  
  
Shit. He hasn’t really thought it out this far forward. He spots a bench nearby and goes down to sit on it, looking around. What should he do? Diana was in Paris, yes, and so was he, but how would he find her? Maybe Diana had left. Maybe-- Isobel had said something about superheroes in America. Maybe Diana had left for America. Maybe--  
No. She was here. Keep it together, Trevor. He had to hope she was here, because he didn’t have enough money, enough time, enough patience to go find her in America. He needed to find her _here_.  
Remembering, Steve pulls out the bills Isobel had pushed into his hand as he was leaving. He tried to decline, but she just gave him one of her stern looks and insisted. He pulls out the money now, eyes boggling at the large fifty marks printed in the corners. There are three bills, and it’s-- it’s a lot of money. It’s a currency he doesn’t recognise, not the Franks or the Sterlings or German Marks he’s used to. It’s something called a Euro? And he assumed that money has, he’s not sure, devalued in the last one hundred years? Because Isobel had given him one hundred and fifty like it was nothing - “enough for a night in a good hotel and maybe three in a bad one” - and Jesus Christ, that’s way more than what Sir Patrick had given him to pay three men for two days of dangerous work, not to mention buying all of their food and paying for transport.  
  
The sun hovers above him in the sky, and he thinks it’s just a past lunchtime now. The tourist office is open, it’s white shutters swung open and decorated with maps of Paris.  
  
Steve gets up and walks to it. The woman inside is young, and busy writing something.  
  
“Uhm,” says Steve, clearing his throat. “Uh, excuse me?”  
  
The woman looks up. “ Bonjour, monsieur, est-ce que je peux vous aider?”  
  
“I, uh, I don’t speak French,” says Steve with a wince.  
  
“No problem,” says the woman, and smiles. Her accent is crisp. “Is there anything I can help you with?”  
  
“Oh, yea,” says Steve, glancing at the Eiffel Tower. “I was wondering where I could find, uh, Diana Prince…?”  
  
The woman tilts her head. “... Diana?”  
  
Steve wracks his brain, and remembers what that news reported called Diana, three days and what now feels like a lifetime ago. “Uh… Wonder Woman?”  
  
“Oh! Wonder Woman,” the woman says. “Well, I don’t… I don’t think she has an official, uhm, place where she receives visitors--” She laughs, and looks at Steve apologetically. It hits him that she thinks he’s a fanatic. The woman pulls out a map, and circles something, handing it to Steve. She says, “-- But she is often seen around the Louvre. I don’t know if you will be able see her today, though.”  
  
Steve takes the map, and nods. “Thank you.”  
  
“Really sorry about that,” says the woman.  
  
Steve grins at her. “No, it’s no problem. Thank you.”  
  
The woman nods.  
  
He turns to walk away, and then remembers blithely. “Do, uh, do I need to pay for this map?”  
  
The woman waves. “Oh, no, no, it’s free. Uh, if you want to go to the Louvre anyway, it’s down this street, along the river. There will be signs.” She points.  
  
Steve looks at where she’s gesturing, nods again, and then says, “Thank you!”  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
The glistening glass pyramid of the Louvre comes into view after an hour of walking. Steve thinks he could have gotten here faster, but he couldn’t help stopping at every wonder and sight that greeted him on the way.  
  
Buildings! Gardens! Boats, and people, and televisions everywhere, large and small and tiny, tiny ones in shop windows. And the shops! Selling books and beautiful little statues and clothes at prices that boggle his mind and amaze him with their colours and patterns and the sheer life they predict for the people of this time.  
And the people! Wearing those clothes! He thinks that everyone is rich, here in the future, because he’s never seen more colourful people in his life. They wear dresses and the women wear trousers and the men wear pink shirts, and it just makes Steve gasp and stare, and on a few occasions, turn away with a blush. The girls here wear _really_ short skirts - like, Diana-short skirts - and Steve has never seen that much leg and arm and even midriff outside of exotic films, skeezy magazines, Themyscira, and the bedroom. He’s still blushing, thinking about it.  
God.  
Diana must love it here.  
  
So, after an hour of wrestling his open-eyed shock under control, Steve reaches the glass pyramid, and the stately buildings of the Louvre behind it. Helpful signs in French and English and a dozen other languages direct him down, into the cavernous concourse of the glass pyramid, down a set of hallways and stairs that _move by themselves_ , until he’s standing in the centre of it all, gazing up through the glass in wonder.  
He can’t stand there forever though, and his want to find Diana is building in the back of his mind with every passing second, so he follows the flow of people towards a help desk. The man behind it is once again writing something, tapping away at a little typewriter thing, but he looks up when Steve approaches.  
  
“Hello, can I help you, sir?” This man’s accent is British.  
  
Steve is taken aback, having heard nothing but French inflections in the last three days. “I’m, uh… I’m looking for Diana Prince,” he says.  
  
“Diana Prince...?” says the man, squinting.  
“Wonder Woman,” Steve clarifies.  
  
“Uh, yes, I know.” The man frowns. “Uhm, do you… do you have an appointment?”  
Steve bites his lip and grimaces. “Not really, but… Uhm, I know her. Diana.”  
  
“...Right,” says the man, and Steve can see he doesn’t believe him.  
  
“Please, just--” Steve rubs his face, suddenly tired. “Just ask her, tell her that I’m here. I’m-- My name is Steve Trevor. She’ll know.”  
  
The man just looks uncomfortable now, and Steve curses everything, curses the whole goddamn world for putting Diana on the big stage, because now everyone thinks he’s just some obsessed _fanatic_. He backs away from the desk, frustrated, and sits down at a nearby bench.  
The man at the help desk watches him, and then, satisfied that Steve isn’t about to do anything weird, speaks into his phone. Or maybe some sort of radio? Because Steve hears an answer buzz through, full of static.  
People mill around him, and Steve doesn’t know what to do with his sudden fatigue. He’s so close. So close. He can feel it. Diana is here, _here_ in this building, with just a few walls and floors and doorways separating them and now he can do _nothing_.  
But, goddamn it, he’s not giving up now. He clenches and unclenches his hands. He’s not giving up. He’ll sit here, he’ll sit here all day if that’s what it takes. All night.  
The man at the help desk gives Steve another look, but Steve ignores him.  
A clock on the wall strikes two.  
Steve gets ready to stay put for a long while yet.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
The hum of people around him lulls into a quiet peace. There are only a few tourists left, coming out of the various entrances and hallways that no doubt lead to the rest of the museum. All the different languages that had buzzed around his ears for the day give way to soft-spoken French and English.  
  
Steve is puzzling out a museum guide book when the man from the help desk approaches him. The clock on the wall reads five-fifty.  
  
The man mutters into his radio, “Il est toujours lá.” He walks up to Steve and clears his throat.  
  
“Sir, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. The museum closes in ten minutes,” he says.  
  
Steve looks up from the guidebook. “Did you tell Diana I’m here?”  
  
The man looks so uncomfortable, and Steve distantly realises he’s coming off really shady, but he pushes the thought down.  
  
“You have to leave, sir,” the man says instead.  
  
Steve stands up and puts the guidebook back on the rack by the bench. “Alright,” he says. “I will if you tell her.”  
  
The man stiffens. Now he’s annoyed. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I cannot do that--”  
  
“Why not?” says Steve. “I’m just--” He pushes a hand through his hair. “I promise you, I _promise you_ I’m not a creep, I’m not stalker, I’m not a _fan_ or a reporter or whatever it is you think I am.” The man opens his mouth to reply but Steve barrels on; “Please, just-- Just tell Diana, tell her that Steve Trevor is here, and that I’ve been here for the last _four hours_ \--” And really, Steve knows this isn’t much, he’s waited for the last four days, for the last fucking _century_ but every instinct in his head is telling him to push the point.  
  
“Sir, you need to leave,” the man insists, and he’s bringing up his radio to say, “J’ai un petit problème ici.”  
  
Steve catches the word, and he’s so frustrated that his next words come out in a shout of; “I’m not a _problem_ , Jesus Christ on a stick, I just want to see Diana--”  
  
And Steve is just so frustrated and angry, and the man looks angry too, and just as Steve is opening his mouth to continue his string of increasingly-vexed arguments because he is _tired_ , there is a resounding _ping_ from somewhere in the back of the hall. Two sets of chrome doors slide open and--  
  
And everything in Steve just _stops_.  
  
The man from the help desk turns, gasps, and then hurries forward, approaching the guard in the elevator and the woman - the woman - the _woman_ standing behind him. Steve can’t _breathe._  
  
“ Je t’ai dit de n’pas l’amener par ici, on a une situation.” the man is hissing to the guard.  
  
The guard gestures helplessly, saying, “Chuis désolé, j'essaie, mais--”  
  
And then her voice, still as sharp and clear as it was when he’d heard it last week, a hundred years ago, says, “Mais non, messieurs, ce n’est qu’un admirateur. Je les verrai avec plaisir.”  
She hasn’t seen him yet, because all Steve sees is the stately profile of her face, and everything is in slow motion. He drinks her in, as if he really hadn’t seen her in a century, and he feels every year, every second of that century right now. Her hair has changed, no longer loose but pulled back from her face in a sleek ponytail. It accentuates her high cheekbones, the kohl-black sweep of it falling down her back. She stands tall, and proud, and in the glass-refracted sunlight of the pyramid she looks every inch the legendary Amazon she is, stepping out of myth and legend and the deep old whispers of the stars to live glorious among them. Steve thinks nothing, no-one, can look more like love.  
  
And then Diana turns, and the air wheezes out of Steve’s lungs in a rush as their eyes meet. They’re different, black and sure and still the same, and Steve’s whole body feels less than real. The argument of the man and the guard fades into a distant buzz.  
  
Diana’s lips part, her eyes widen, and she takes a single, staggering step back. Her face is open, pale, and then oh so lost, and then a frown grows furrowing over her eyes, so painfully hopeful and sad and confused until a single, disbelieving word escapes her in a whisper:  
  
“...Steve?”  
  
She’s shaking her head, and staring at him like he is smoke and shadow. Her throat works, bobs around words that don’t come out.  
  
She doesn’t think he’s real.  
  
A strangled noise claws its way out of him.  
  
“It’s me,” he says.  
  
Her eyes widen, and she sucks in breath.  
  
Everything from then on is a blur.  
  
One moment, Steve is standing under the haze of the pyramid, mind struggling to connect anything to the surreality of seeing Diana again, and then the next, he’s been knocked back by an armful of Amazon, a litany of words and questions and his name being poured into his ear.  
  
“Steve, Steve, I can’t--” Diana is saying, her hands flying all over him from his face to his chest to his hair. She’s touching him to make sure he’s real. She looks horrified. “You’re--”  
  
“Diana,” he says. She looks up, and their eyes meet again, and all Steve can choke out from the sudden constriction in his throat is, “Diana, I’m--”  
  
“Steve,” she says. There are tears in her eyes. Her face is crumpling, and her fingers wind into his hair. “Steve. You’re-- How--” And she starts to sob.  
  
Steve can feel his own tears rolling down his face. They drag each other down onto the floor, his arms winding around as much of Diana as he can possibly manage. He wants to keep her here forever, warm and alive and _her_ and right here with him. He wants to open his chest and pour his heart out for her, wants to wind himself inside the embrace of her ribs and stay.  
  
“Diana,” he says, and it comes out wet and broken. “Diana, I’m--”  
  
She cups his face with her hands, just as he’d done with her so many times, and her eyes dart over his face. “Steve, you’re--” Her breath stutters, and her voice is wrecked. “You _died_.”  
  
He nods, swallowing thickly and pulling her forehead to his. “Yes.”  
  
“But-- How--”  
  
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.” And because he truly doesn’t know what to do next, he kisses her.  
  
She freezes, and Steve has a moment of wild uncertainty of whether he’s even allowed to do that anymore, it’s been _a century_ , when she surges forward and kisses him back with desperate fervour and chases his thoughts away. Her hands wind around his neck and he pulls her even closer, scared that she’ll disappear again if he lets go even for a moment.  
She is warm and solid under his hands, and oh so achingly _real_. He’s been lost, he realises, so lost these last four days and one hundred years without her. He hasn’t seen her for just five days of his memory, but...  
  
He can’t image, can’t possibly comprehend how he could survive a second more.  
  
He kisses her like he wants to ground his soul. She kisses back like she wants to do the same.  
There is a biting edge of desperation to it, a resolution.  
She tastes like peppermint and iron, and Steve reminds himself to breathe because he wants, with a visceral certainty, to drown himself. His fingers wind into her hair, pulling it from it’s slicked-back hold, and he revels in its softness.  
  
Eventually, she pulls away, turns the kiss into something chaste, and all of the frantic desperation of the last few moments begins to fade. Steve let’s her, because he’s shaking, and he doesn’t want to break again. She looks at him and rests their heads together in comfort.  
  
He kisses her forehead, tucks her into the hollow of his throat, and breaths in her scent.  
  
Finally, as their chests rise and fall in tandem, they part, Diana whispers, “Steve.”  
  
He opens his eyes, and looks at her. “Diana.”  
  
She searches for something, black irises flicking between his. She smiles, and whispers like she’s telling him a secret, “I missed you.”  
  
His eyes crinkle. “I missed you too.”  
  
They sit, on the cold floor of the Louvre and under the bright afternoon sun of France, just enjoying each other’s warmth. Reassuring themselves that this was real. That this wasn’t a dream, a hallucination, or a fluke of sight.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
When they get up, the museum is closed, and the concours around them is empty. The man from the help desk and the guard have disappeared, no doubt discomfited by their very public display of affection. It’s just him and Diana under the light of the pyramid, and the comfortable silence between them.  
  
Steve assumes they’ll be talking soon, though. He’s sure Diana has questions, and he has plenty of his own.  
He’s content to stay here for a while. He’s just content, for the first time in days. Peaceful.  
  
Diana breaks the silence first; “I don’t want to move.” Her voice is a little hoarse.  
  
Steve has to bite back a snort, because he was thinking the same thing. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice is just as wrought. “Me neither.”  
  
Diana looks at him, and then takes a breath. “I suppose we must, though.”  
  
She stands up and tugs on his hand, gesturing with her head. He doesn’t miss that her eyes never leave him, but his eyes don’t leave her either.  
  
“Come,” she says. “I have a better place than this.”  
  
He follows her. He thinks she’s going to take him to an office, or perhaps an empty room within the museum, but she leads him outside instead, into the cooling afternoon. The sun is warm and red and Steve matches her steps, winding an arm around her waist. She grips him with both hands, pulling him close, and their legs bump together. It’s a little awkward, but he thinks both of them need this. Need to be close.  
  
They go up, and away from the pyramid, past the gates of the palace buildings and out into the streets of Paris. Diana pulls him along, and he only looks at her. He drinks in the sight of her face, of the curl of her hair and the proud line of her neck.  
  
Diana walks to the road, sticks out her hand and hails a nearby car. The driver pulls up, rolls down the windows, and Diana says something in quiet French. The man nods, and Diana turns to Steve, pulling him towards the car.  
  
“Come,” she says. She doesn’t have to. He would go to hell for her, and she wouldn’t have to ask.  
  
Still, he lets her pull him down into the car, shuffling along the seats until they’re pressed together in the back of it.  
  
The driver confirms what Steve realises now was an address, Diana nods. They move off, rejoining the traffic.  
  
“Where are we going?” Steve whispers.  
  
Diana rubs his arm and whispers back, “My home.” She pauses. “Well, a friend’s home.”  
  
“Will your friend be there?” Steve asks, and it’s the most important question in the world.  
  
“No,” says Diana, smiling. “We are alone.”  
  
Steve doesn’t look away, and neither does Diana. Her face is dotted with freckles, so similar to the tone of her skin but still undeniable present. How did he miss that before?  
  
He realises he silence must be awkward, so he wracks his head for a question. “Your friend?”  
  
Diana blinks. “Hmm?”  
  
“Your friend, uh, uhm, what’s their name?”  
  
“Bruce,” she says.  
  
Steve curses himself but can’t help it. He’s in love with her, but, damn, it’s been a hell of a long time for her, a whole lifetime, and maybe-- He couldn’t ask it of her, he _wouldn’t_ ask. He wants her happiness and safety, and realises, plain as day in that moment, that if she wants to seek it with someone else, he won’t ever begrudge her.  
  
She must see the uncertainty in his eyes, because she leans up and kisses him softly.  
  
“Steve,” she whispers. There is a reassurance in her tone.  
  
He looks down, ashamed. “I’m-- I’m sorry.” He feels his heart ache and he doesn’t know why.  
  
“Don’t be,” she says. “Steve.” She cranes her neck so their eyes meet. “My people, we can love only once.”  
  
Steve looks up at her. “It’s… it’s been a _hundred years_ , Diana. I understand if…”  
  
She stops him with a hand on his cheek. “I am an immortal. A lifetime is a blink.” She kisses him sweetly. “And I will wait another lifetime if I have to.”  
  
He tries to hold it back, to stop the soft and fragile thing inside him from bubbling up to the surface, but he _can’t_. He kisses her, hoping she won’t notice the wetness on his face, and knowing that she will. His whole heart is open to her.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
The car pulls up outside the building with a soft sigh.  
  
Diana thanks the driver, pushing a folded note into his hands and declining the change. Her hand never let’s Steve’s go. They watch the car disappear around the corner, and then Diana is guiding him along, keying in a code on the funny little pad outside the building and pulling him in through the doors.  
  
The building is old and beautiful. Even to Steve, it’s old. Expensive. He takes in the white walls and carved colonnades with wonder. Windows, large and airy, let light drift in. The avenue it’s on is lined with trees, undisturbed by the noise of traffic.  
Inside, however, everything is new. There is polished glass and sleek chrome on every surface. Buttons and lights glow,and the rooms are lit with beautiful chandeliers.  
Diana leads him through a marble-floored hallway, heels clicking on the stone, nodding at the receptionist as they pass her desk. There is a large elevator around the corner, and Diana keys in another number on the pad, waiting for the doors. Steve watches her - the way she is both thrumming with energy and completely still.  
  
With a _ping_ , the doors slide open, and she pulls him inside.  
  
“Beautiful,” says Steve.  
  
“You should see the apartment,” Diana replies, and then blushes, realising that that’s not what Steve had been complimenting. She turns to look at him.  
  
The doors open again, and a soft voice announces their arrival at the penthouse.  
  
Diana turns, and leads him out.  
  
Steve is-- it’s best described as ‘hazy’. He’s in a fog, he _is_ a fog, and the only thing holding him down is Diana’s hand in his. He’s a cloud, a whisper. He holds on tighter, afraid to disappear if he lets go.  
  
“Steve,” says Diana, and he loves it - loves the way his name sounds when she says it. He wants to hear it again.  
  
The apartment around him is relegated to the background. He sees white walls and wood-panelled floors. The same finely-chosen wealth he’s seen down in the lobby. He doesn’t care about that now. He concentrates, and hears nobody here but the two of them.  
  
Diana turns to him, and the doors of the elevator slide shut behind them. It moves away with a quiet whir.  
  
“Steve, is everything alright?” Diana whispers, placing her hands on his chest. “You’re looking a little…”  
  
He takes her hands in his, and puts them on his shoulders, pulling her closer. Her face fits in his palms like a dream. “Hmm?”  
  
She blinks, and shakes her head. “Nothing.”  
  
He nods, eyes sliding over her face. “Alright.”  
  
He licks his lips, and Diana’s eyes follow the movement.  
  
“Can I…?” he whispers.  
  
She nods, moving closer. “Yes.”  
  
Steve leans in, his eyes flicking to hers, and kisses her.  
Her lips are soft. He breathes out, and closes his eyes, melting into the action. He hears Diana sigh too, and then her hands are carding through his hair, pulling at the strands. Steve hums, and his lips open under hers, catching her. He’s asking for permission. Diana curls around him and gives it, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss, and Steve is drowning in her. He forgets it all, just living for her heat of her mouth and the solid warmth of her in the cradle of his arms. He doesn’t realise they’re moving until Diana makes a noise. Her back hits the hall table, and without thinking much about it, Steve hooks his hands under her thighs and hoists her up.  
  
She towers over him then, and he has to break the kiss, just to take a moment and look up at her face.  
“Diana.”  
  
She strokes the side of his face with the back of her hand.  
  
He swallows. He doesn't know what he wants now. “Diana,” he says instead, as if that is an answer.  
  
He doesn’t want to kiss anymore, wants to just look at her forever. She lets him. All the world, all of _his_ world, hers at a call, and she lets a lonely lost spy map her face with a cosmos of wonder.  
  
“Steve,” she says.  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Lie with me.”  
  
And that _very quickly_ becomes the only thing Steve wants to do right in that moment. He nods, and then nods again, a little frantic, as if she’ll change her mind if he doesn’t take the offer now.  
  
Diana nudges him back and stands up, winding her arms around his neck and giving him a lingering kiss before she moves around him and tugs his hand. He stumbles after her, mind blank and white with static. He can see only her.  
  
Diana leads him down the hall and through a large door. An open room, dark save for the final light of the setting sun, lies behind it. The windows sweep from floor to ceiling, illuminating the bookshelf and vanity and the large bed dominating the room. Diana doesn’t pause, just turns them around and pushes Steve down onto the bed, stepping back a little to look at him. Her ponytail is gone - instead, her hair falls like black waves around her face.  
  
She looks like a goddess in this light, he thinks. Her face is lit by the golden aftermath of the sunset.  
  
She doesn’t let him get lost in the thoughts though, climbing up between his legs and kissing him softly. He hears a rustle of cloth, and then a pointed thunk. He opens his eyes, and Diana’s missing her maroon cowl, and her black heeled shoes. His mouth is suddenly dry.  
  
She tugs at his jumper then, and he takes a moment to understand before he’s clambering out of it, tossing it aside. Next to go it his belt, at which Diana pauses. It’s the belt of his old German uniform. She must recognise it, from the last time, because her hands are frozen and her eyes are misting. He stops her, cupping her cheek and pulling her into a kiss. Her breathing sounds strained, so Steve pulls the belt out himself and tosses it too. He tugs her jumper over her head, and she pulls off his white undershirt. They break the kiss to catch some air, and to take in the sight of each other.  
  
Diana reaches out and touches something on his chest, frowning. Steve searches her expression, and then looks down, seeing that she’s touching the weird bruise from when he’d first woken.  
  
“That’s--” Her voice is strangled.  
  
Steve swallows. “Diana?”  
  
She closes her eyes and shakes her head, pulling him back into a kiss. There is a touch of frenzy to it now. He tugs off her black undershirt, and she drags Steve up off the bed to push down at his trousers. He grips her hands where they are at his hips, and turns them around, stepping out of his socks and shoes and union suit with one stride. It’s her turn now to be pushed down onto the bed, and Steve uses this new position to run his hands along the hem of her skirt, asking. She nods, and her hands run to the side of it to tug the zipper down. Steve helps her wriggled out of it, and then out of her tights too, pulling them off her legs. He is bare, and she is almost too. He lies down over her to kiss her soundly.  
  
“You’re a doll,” he whispers in the pauses.  
  
“Steve,” Diana whispers back. Her arms curl around him, running up and down his back and tugging at his hair. He’s drowning.  
  
“A dream,” he slurs. “I am-- I am a pagan.” He presses kisses into her neck, into her chest. His movements are sluggish, and he cannot fight it. He’ll rest, just for a moment. He tucks his face into Diana’s hair and breathes in the grounded smell of her.  
He closes his eyes and lets it carry him home.  
  


 

-/-/-

 

  
  
The bright light of morning wakes him, or maybe it’s the birdsong outside.  
  
Steve blinks the sleep out of his eyes, unsure how exactly he’d come to be lying on his stomach, but pleased nonetheless. He is loose, and warm, and softly detached from the rest of his body.  
He blinks, and blinks again, registering soft white sheets and the fall of sunlight and the heat of someone pressed at his side. He frowns sluggishly, lifts his head, and then turns it sideways, shifting under the heaviness of a comforter.  
Diana’s smile greets him. It’s a little tender, a little playful. She has propped her head up on one hand, watching him.  
  
“You know, when I said ‘lie with me’, I didn’t mean ‘lie down with me and fall asleep’,” she says.  
  
Steve drops his head back down onto the pillow and grins. Diana laughs.  
  
“The excitement of the day must’a caught up with me,” he slurs, looking up at her. “If you’re up for it now, though…”  
  
Diana sits up, and the comforter falls away to reveal her very bare chest. Steve’s eyes widen.  
  
“I wouldn’t want to tire you out…” says Diana, and for a moment Steve thinks she’s being serious, but then he catches the glint in her eyes and swallows. He’s caught between wanting to laugh and to fall to his knees.  
  
Instead, he shifts, sitting up in front of her. He sees her eyes dart to his chest and stay there, and he can’t help but preen a little, to move his shoulders back and let her look. He’s above average.  
  
“I think I’m well rested,” he says. His throat is dry.  
  
“Yes?” says Diana, cupping his face.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, putting his hand over hers.  
  
He moves until his back is pressed against the wooden headboard of the bed. Diana’s hand never leaves his face. She moves closer too, swinging her leg over his until she’s straddling his hips and Steve’s throat is as dry as a desert.  
  
He looks up at her face for the thousandth time in twenty-four hours, and his hand drifts to her hips, fingers running along the hem of her underwear.  
  
“Are you sure?” he asks.  
  
She cups his face, leaning their foreheads together. “We have done this before,” she reminds him.  
  
He swallows. “That was a while ago.”  
  
“I am sure,” she says, and lifts her hips up, guiding his hands in undressing her.  
  
Steve loses the power of speech, the same was he lost it in that two-storied French house at the edge of a bombed-out village square, when the sky was full of snow and thunder.  
The sky here is just full of light.  
  
“I couldn’t reply, when you said it,” Diana whispers.  
  
Steve’s eyes dart up to hers.  
  
“When you were--” Her voice catches. “When you were saying goodbye.”  
  
Steve frowns, and tries to remember, and does. “I-- Diana…”  
  
She looks at him, and he falls silent. He waits with baited breath, and his heart beats fast.  
  
“I thought I would never get to reply,” she says, and her voice is low, and hopeful, and so, so filled with joy. “I love you.”  
  
Diana leans in, and Steve closes his eyes as she kisses him.  
His heart is fit to overflow.  
  
“I love you.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> heeeeeeey this is my first fic in like 12 months because my Leaving Cert exams are just over (!!!) and Wonder Woman has destroyed me both emotionally and just in general so, like, i had to write
> 
> EDIT: got pointed out that in DC nobody knows Diana is WW, sorry about that! XD lets pretend this is a slightly diff parallel universe where ppl kinda do but are chill about it
> 
> (oh btw Steve's bruise looks like a blotchy ♇)  
> (bc they said "all" but that one has always been a stay-outta-drama type of mf)


End file.
